Thursday, November 14, 2013

Sabotaging solar power to keep it from succeeding...

"Utility commissioners in Arizona will decide the fate of rooftop
solar incentives this week, in what has become the biggest fight over
renewable energy policy in the country. A two-day hearing on the issue
at the Arizona Corporation Commission began Wednesday. The Arizona Public Service, the state's largest utility, is asking
the commission to change the current policy, which allows homes and
businesses with their own solar power systems to sell any excess energy
they generate back to the grid. That policy, known as net metering, was
first put in place in 2009. The utility argues that customers with
rooftop solar aren't paying their fair share to maintain the grid, and
has proposed policy changes that would increase prices for those with
solar systems. But local solar advocates have accused the utility of
trying to kill the state's burgeoning solar industry, and have launched a
counter-campaign.

As The Huffington Post has previously reported,
the fight got interesting when the utility revealed that it had been
secretly funding anti-solar ads produced by a national conservative
group. After a commissioner asked the company and other groups involved in the net metering debate to disclose how much money they were spending on the issue, APS disclosed that it had spent $3.7 million on PR work. The solar lobby disclosed that it was spending nearly half a million dollars on fighting the proposed changes. Meanwhile, the Edison Electric Institute, a national group that
represents utilities, has jumped in the fight, spending $520,000 on a
10-day television ad campaign in support of APS, the Arizona Republic reported. "